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NotBornYesterday writes "After spending $190,000 and 'countless hours' building a set of jet-powered wings, a Swiss man has successfully demoed this ultimate mother-of-all-toys. After jumping from a plane like a skydiver, he then lit the four jet engines and proceeded to fly around a valley in the Alps at up to 186 miles per hour. His site is here, if you want to see shots of him in action. 'I still haven't used the full potential,' he said."

I liked his "fuel tanks", too. Puncture one of those in flight, have your jet fuel soaking down your leg from a bladder belted to your belly towards a running jet engine strapped to your foot... great balls of fire!

This guy's been jumping out of planes with jet-powered wings for *years*.. to the point that the big story over a year ago was that the army was considering developing one to give air-dropped troops more flexibility. Supposedly the wings can hold like 200 lbs worth of gear in addition to the "pilot."

It'll be news again when he finally achieves his goal of taking off with just the wing. Not jumping out of a plane.

This guy's been jumping out of planes with jet-powered wings for *years*.. to the point that the big story over a year ago was that the army was considering developing one to give air-dropped troops more flexibility. Supposedly the wings can hold like 200 lbs worth of gear in addition to the "pilot."

It'll be news again when he finally achieves his goal of taking off with just the wing. Not jumping out of a plane.

You know, if you replaced the pilot with remote control system, it could carry GBU-39s. Or even something smaller, like the size of RPG warheads. The idea is that you launch loads of these things from B52s and they would swarm over a combat zone killing tanks and sending video feeds back.

Oh that gives me an idea! What about we give bombs small wings and jet engines so they could reach from like 20 miles away a target much faster than a plane!? I propose we call these new type of jet-powered bombs "missiles".

A cruise missile costs $1m. JDAMs cost $40000. I don't know what SDBs cost, but it should be less than a JDAM.

The plane to drop them costs much more ($137m for an F-22) and if it gets shot down the pilot can be effectively held hostage to try to influence public opinion back in the US. Seems like a light weight, semi disposable way to drop bombs on people would be cheap and would avoid hostage situations with POWs.

In fact you could could lose a whole squadron for less than a cost of one F-22. They'd be quite stealthy due to their size and low altitude, but they don't need to be. Sheer numbers would overwhelm enemy air defenses.

The plane to drop them costs much more ($137m for an F-22) and if it gets shot down

And when's the last time a F-22 got shot down? Matter of fact a F-22 is probably less visible on a radar than this jet-packish thing we're talking about. You know what's the difference between a missile and that thing? Missiles can be launched from an airplane from 25 miles away (I'm not even talking about ground-ground missiles which can have any range you may need), and they cruise at a speed usually between Mach 2 and 4 (iirc). That thing probably wouldn't reach 200 knots if it tried so you could shoot it down with any heat-seaking missile or even anti-aircraft gun.

There's a reason why missiles cost the price they cost. Same for pretty much anything in the Air Force.

Who the fuck keeps modding up these moronic "This is old news!!!" posts from AC's.

Yes, they are boring, but someone has to state the obvious and there's nothing wrong about imforming everyone about prior coverage in the media.

It might have been the first official flight, but I can recall at least 3 TV "infotainment" shows (non-US) covering this in recent years. Afterall it's just the economy of the mass media industry: Some major media agency publishes this and every news source copies it ad nauseam, because the journalists in charge haven't heard of it before or they simply are in need of content. Or they feel that not covering it will make their clientele think that they are not aware of an issue important to their particular target group*.

Two anecdotes: I know someone in the healthcare industry who hired a pr agency to promote his product. They scheduled a press conference in spring. Maybe 5 journalists of unimportant newspapers showed up. However, the press-kit they send to every major news source really paid off: In the silly season (over here that's around July) many newspapers wrote a feature about said product. Some even copied the euphemistic phrases of the press kit: "Breakthrough in hip surgery", "Uncle John can finally walk again" and so on. On another occasion I wrote to a major energy supplier requesting material about their view on nuclear power. They send me many articles and 2 months later I read one of them again in my favorite newspaper word-by-word (it was about a new generation of nuclear plants somewhere in scandinavia). Both examples show that we have to pay attention to how we read news and who has interest in making it public. It also shows that journalists do not only cover interesting stories, but also copy material because of laziness or cost pressure.

For those reasons I like it when someone shouts "old news" in such discussions. It's a kind reminder that the news isn't newsworthy. And if I haven't heard about it before I can still read on, but I'll take it with a grain of salt.

*Not a problem as long as they mention that it has been covered before.

Doubtful they'd show up.Check out HALO jumps for the use of this thing. Basically, normal plane files up to restricted air space and does a hard turn. Crazy military types bail out and using the momentum from the turn are flung into restricted air space. They then free fall below terrain level before opening chute e.g. into a valley. This means they could probably get further from the departure point. Also they can avoid the sides of the valley which seems to be a problem currently.

What I'm wondering if these things have a throttle? If so is a landing possible without chute?

I would imagine that without a landing gear of some sort (i don't there there are TOO many people that can run as fast as that thing needs to go to generate enough lift to stay airborne) it would be only slightly more difficult than landing an F-16 with its nose pointed to the sky and its thrust nozzles laying on the tarmac.

Depends what he made the wing out of. If it was fiberglass and/or composites, then probably not very well. If it was metal construction (I don't think it is), then it'll show up fine. It flies at like 200mph max I guess, so it reenters the realm of human aimed guns.

He cuts the engines and opens a parachute. The more concerning issue is the major bane of jet powered flight - bird hits. At the speed they are talking about, a bird hitting this guy in the head, even with a helmet, stands a good chance of knocking him out. Then you're going to have a dead bird as well as a dead wing-rider.

The more concerning issue is the major bane of jet powered flight - bird hits. At the speed they are talking about, a bird hitting this guy in the head, even with a helmet, stands a good chance of knocking him out. Then you're going to have a dead bird as well as a dead wing-rider.

Meh... hook up some monitoring systems and have the parachute autodeploy. So he has to get some reconcstructive surgery... big whoop.

The bigger concern, I would think, would be avoiding the amorous attentions of Rodan [wikia.com]. No amoun

At the speed they are talking about, a bird hitting this guy in the head, even with a helmet, stands a good chance of knocking him out. Then you're going to have a dead bird as well as a dead wing-rider.

Naw. You've got the same problem with motorcycles - a buddy of mine had TWO birds hit him almost simultaneously, while he was doing 200+ mph. One nailed him in the head, cracking the face-shield, while the other one turned itself into jello inside the bike's headlight. Not only did it not knock him out, but he even managed to retain control of the bike.

Most birds don't have much weight, and modern helmets are built with some heavy-impact in mind (no pun intended). You'd have to hit a friggin condor to get knocked out.

200+ MPH? That's a quick bike.. Even my GSXR struggles to do this! What is is exactly?

He had a hayabusa... but it turns out I had a brainfart and spit up some bad math. I was thinking "roughly 260 km/h", and did the conversion to miles all wrong. The corrected figure would be 160+ mph. I believe his bike was capable of doing 200mph (he said he got it up to 315 km/h), but he deffinitely wasn't maxed out when he hit the birds.

The more concerning issue is the major bane of jet powered flight - bird hits. At the speed they are talking about, a bird hitting this guy in the head, even with a helmet, stands a good chance of knocking him out. Then you're going to have a dead bird as well as a dead wing-rider.

Speaking as a biker who recently saw a very bewildered pigeon zoom very close by, I'd say the bane is not restricted to jets.

I do have one concern, though: Those turbines don't appear to have any protection in from of them, and the inside ones look like they are in range of his hands (perhaps the photo is lying). I imagine an ex-fighter pilot has his wits about him, but if I was flying it, I'd be worried about losing my fingers in a moment of stupidity and forgetfulness.

Those turbines don't appear to have any protection in from of them, and the inside ones look like they are in range of his hands...I'd be worried about losing my fingers in a moment of stupidity and forgetfulness

Small jet engines have been an elusive goal for decades. They can be built, but the cost doesn't go down much below bizjet size. That's why general aviation is still piston-powered.

This guy is using four model aircraft jet engines. Probably ones like this. [jetcatusa.com] They're somewhat marginal devices, needing an overhaul every 25 hours. (For aviation jet engines, that number is usually at least 1000 hours.) Good thing he carries a parachute.

Parachutes and paragliders tend to be unpredictable and are not particularly safe, doubly so at speeds exceeding sound or at very low altitudes. It's unclear the designs can be improved much beyond current levels. A more rigid wing might be a viable option under circumstances where parachutes either shouldn't be used or can't be used. As such, they may well be a viable option for emergency transport.

Yes, it's an old story, but it has been a very slow news day. Actually, it's been a very slow news month!

Oh, there are parachutes that can be used at those speeds - they have some method of allowing air to travel through them, albeit impeded, which is why the Thrust-SSC car was able to use parachutes at speeds exceeding mach 1, and why there is some value in having ejector seats capable of supporting supersonic airspeeds. You will have noticed, of course, that commentators on the Challenger disaster stuck to discussing subsonic parachutes only and essentially classed all supersonic flight as beyond the limits

Ah! This must be why very low-level drops, as used by special forces, are considered bloody dangerous (the chute needs a non-zero time to open), why the rectilinear parachutes are considered more steerable but more prone to entanglement than classical parachutes (which, ergo, means that you can EITHER have predictable steering OR predictable opening, but not both), why the rate of parachute failures on the Thrust-SSC car was unexpectedly high, or why a device invented in 1595 and is intrinsically very simpl

This must be why very low-level drops, as used by special forces, are considered bloody dangerous (the chute needs a non-zero time to open), why the rectilinear parachutes are considered more steerable but more prone to entanglement than classical parachutes (which, ergo, means that you can EITHER have predictable steering OR predictable opening, but not both),

I agree with the parent, you ARE talking out of your arse. How do you define low-level? Base-jumpers regularly jump from office buildings, and they

Um... yeah, and base jumping is widely acknowledged to be about the most dangerous thing you can do for fun, bar jumping off office buildings WITHOUT a parachute. Parachutes, rectilinear or otherwise, aren't "quite safe", they're "safer than not having one". There

Certainly, you're a dozen times more likely to die in a car accident than you are from a chute malfunction. That's because you travel in a car every single day whereas a couple of dozen jumps makes you a seasoned skydiver. If you parachuted your way to and from work every morning, I think you just might possibly find that parachuting is higher risk than driving.